O.Wilde, Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. (...)Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. (...)No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. (...)All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself...

O. Wilde (1854-1900), Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Jean Béraud

Jean Béraud was a French painter who became famous for his paintings concerning daily
life in Paris during the Belle Époque. Throughout his life his style gradually shifted
from academic to impressionism.

He was born in Saint
Petersburg on January 12, 1849. His father was a sculptor who died when Jean
was a boy. Following his death, the family moved to Paris.

There he met the famous
painter Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) and began his career as a painter, too. His
first exhibition was in 1872.

He became famous in 1876 thanks to his painting On the Way Back from the Funeral. In
1889 he exhibited with the Society of French Watercolorists at the World’s Fair
in Paris. He received the Légion d’Honneur in 1894.

Jean Béraud died in
Paris on October 4, 1935 at the age of 86. He is buried in Montparnasse
Cemetery beside his mother.

Desio (MB), Italy, 4th July 2004

Whitby, by Turner

Fairies, Arthur Rackham

About Me

Sun and Sea, by Frank Sutcliffe (1853 - 1941)

Mary Shelley

'It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishments of my toils. with an anxiety which almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. it was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-exstinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.'Frankenstein, M. Shelley

“How sad it is! I shall grow old,
and horrid, and dreadful.
But this picture will remain
always young. It will never be
older than this particular day of
June. . . .
If it was only the other way!
If it was I who were to be always
young, and the picture that were
to grow old!
For this--for this--I would give
everything!
Yes, there is nothing in the whole
world I would not give!”Oscar Wilde,
The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit." O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes."O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray